The present invention relates generally to the field of software license management, and more particularly to discovering usages of licensed software in a complex and dynamic virtual machine environment.
It is known to transfer software, from a supplier to a customer, in the form of a “sealed VM (virtual machine) image.” The sealed VM image is deployed in the customer's virtualization environment so that the customer can use the software. The sealed VM image typically includes a self-contained virtual machine, controlled by an operating system, which runs one, or more, application(s) (that is, pieces of software that the customer wants to use). Typically, these applications are pre-configured because pre-configuration is relatively easy to do in a VM context. When the sealed VM image is up and running in the virtualization environment, it is referred to as a “virtual appliance.” Through the use of these virtual appliances, customers typically can quickly, easily and reliably do the following things: (i) purchase and download a virtual appliance; (ii) set configuration details; and (iii) reach operational status.
DMTF OVF (distributed management task force open virtualization format, also sometimes referred to herein, more simply, as OVF) is a common packaging format for independent software vendors (ISVs) to package and securely distribute virtual appliances, enabling cross-platform portability. By packaging virtual appliances in OVF, ISVs can create a single, pre-packaged appliance that can run on customers' virtualization platforms of choice. For example, within OVF, information about the vendor, and the product can be stored which later, can be accessed through VM Manager. Descriptors included within a product packaged in OVF format may provide information about the installed software such as product name, vendor name, software version, product URL (universal resource locator) and/or vendor URL, etc. OVF can group descriptors into sections such as discs, network, resource, product, EULA (end user license agreement) terms, etc. OVF descriptors are conventionally used to provide additional information on VM in VM Manager.
Software asset management (SAM) tools are a known type of software. SAM is a traditional way of registering and tracking traditional (that is, non-sealed-VM-image type) software which are installed and used in an organization or enterprise. Typically, SAM is an important tool for asset management related activities, such as tracking activities related to software license payments (see definition of “asset management” related below in the Definitions sub-section of the detailed description section).